Now IPCC becomes just a lobby for Greenpeace!

June 16, 2011

There seems to be an incestuous relationship between the IPCC and a number of advocacy groups with the parties lobbying for each other. In the latest episode the IPCC has become the vehicle for publishing conclusions from a Greenpeace advocacy report on renewables:

The Independent:

Climate change panel in hot water again over ‘biased’ energy report 

The world’s foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world’s energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.

Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence. 

Yesterday, after the full report was released, the sceptical climate change blog Climate Audit reported that the 77 per cent figure had been derived from a joint study by Sven Teske, a climate change expert employed by Greenpeace, which opposes the use of nuclear power to cut carbon emissions.

Last night, the IPCC said it had been made clear that the 77 per cent figure was only one of the estimates made from the models and that Mr Teske was just one of 120 researchers who had worked on the report. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Exxon, Chevron and the French nuclear operator EDF also contribute to the IPCC, so to paint this expert UN body as a wing of Greenpeace is preposterous.” But Mark Lynas, a climate change writer in favour of using nuclear and renewables to combat global warming, said: “It is stretching credibility for the IPCC to suggest that a richer world with two billion more people will use less energy in 2050. Campaigners should not be employed as lead authors in IPCC reports.”

The IPCC must urgently review its policies for hiring lead authors – and I would have thought that not only should biased ‘grey literature’ be rejected, but campaigners from NGOs should not be allowed to join the lead author group and thereby review their own work. There is even a commercial conflict of interest here given that the renewables industry stands to be the main beneficiary of any change in government policies based on the IPCC report’s conclusions. Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.

Climate Audit: IPCC WG3 and the Greenpeace Karaoke

The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario. The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios, the introduction to which was written by IPCC chair Pachauri.

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.

It is totally unacceptable that IPCC should have had a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author of the critical Chapter 10, that the Greenpeace employee, as an IPCC Lead Author, should (like Michael Mann and Keith Briffa in comparable situations) have been responsible for assessing his own work and that, with such inadequate and non-independent ‘due diligence’, IPCC should have featured the Greenpeace scenario in its press release on renewables.

Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, UN | 1 Comment »

“Only way out of the Eurocrisis is for Greece to leave the Euro”

June 16, 2011

Dagens Industri’s panel of finance and economy experts have a bleak view of Greece remaining within the Euro. Emergency loans will be necessary anyway but in the long term, they feel, Greece has to leave the Euro not only for their own sake but also for preventing a collapse of the EMU.

The only way out of the euro crisis is with Greece’s exit from EMU, says Dagen Industi’s expert panel. But only after a lengthy process with more emergency loans to avoid the risk of a new financial meltdown a la Lehman Brothers in 2008.

“Greece is actually already bankrupt. Market prices speak for themselves. The country would not survive a day without an emergency loan from the European Union and IMF” said Marie Giertz, chief economist at Länsförsäkringar.

A new global financial crisis threatens if Greece does not get emergency loans and are forced to suspend payments to private lenders, including German and French banks, warns the European Central Bank ECB and the large rating agencies. Germany and others complain that European taxpayers cannot just continue to sponsor Greece’s debt tangle with never-ending emergency loans.

Cecilia Skingsley, chief analyst of Swedbank’s foreign exchange and fixed income trading, believes that the new emergency loan is the solution only for the short term. But that Greece must eventually leave the EMU. “With a further loan program maybe the market calms for a while. Then in a few years we realize again that this is not sustainable. Therefore I think that Greece must leave the monetary union. In return, they may get a little waiver of some of the emergency loans from the EMU ” said Cecilia Skingsley.

Jan Häggström, chief economist at Handelsbanken, points out that the euro country taxpayers have to bear the Hellenic liabilities no matter how it goes. The alternative to providing further emergency loans is credit losses in the European banking system, which in turn would require government bailouts. “In the end somebody has to write this down and it is not unlikely that Greece will have to leave the euro, but that is further ahead in time” says Jan Häggström.

Greece, in principle, needs to step out of the EMU in order not to drag down other crisis countries into a major depletion of their treasuries, reasons Tomas Pousette, chief economist at SBAB. “Otherwise it is difficult to see why, for example, Portugal should endure ten years of very tough fiscal policy while Greece simply chops off their debt. For a Greece outside the EMU, debt would be burdened by high interest rates and bankruptcies would threaten the country’s banking sector. But the country would also get a chance to revive its tourist industry with its own, lower, exchange rate “, says Tomas Pousette.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, European Union, Greece | 2 Comments »

An inconvenient solar minimum..

June 15, 2011

Solar science and the possibility that a Maunder-like Minimum may be approaching seems to have caught the fancy of the MSM — Al Gore notwithstanding.

  1. The Telegraph New Little Ice Age in store? 
  2. Sydney Morning Herald Quiet sun: drop in solar activity may signal second ‘Little Ice Age’ on Earth
  3. Fox News Global Warming Be Damned, We Might Be Headed for a Mini Ice Age
  4. International Business Times The Sun’s inactivity leading to second Little Ice Age, to Offset Global Warming?
  5. MSNBC Solar forecast hints at a big chill
  6. The Christian Science Monitor A sun with no sun spots? What that could mean for Earth and its climate
  7. Discovery News IS THE SUN ABOUT TO FIZZ OUT?
  8. ABC News Goodnight Sun: Sunspots May Disappear for Years
  9. New Scientist Sluggish sun may ‘sit out’ next solar cycle
  10. Arizona Daily Star Fewer sunspots could help offset global warming
Most of these publications are generally fairly uncritical adherents of whatever seems to be in vogue and have usually been very vocal in supporting the AGW creed. But it is nevertheless interesting to see how they have all picked up this news — as if they are bored with and tired of repeating the same old AGW story-line and are just waiting for a new star to follow.
Perhaps the political tide is turning, ……

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Posted in Behaviour, Media, Science, Solar science | 2 Comments »

Gaddafi gets tickets for the Olympics

June 15, 2011

Update – 15th June!!

After the furore yesterday Mark Adams, the IOC’s director of communications, said that Libya would not be given any printed tickets “until the current situation becomes clearer”. “To be absolutely clear, no tickets have been printed or paid for,” he said.

14th June — Is escaping from Libya as part of an Olympics delegation part of some new exit strategy? I put this down to stupidity rather than corruption though both are endemic within the IOC (and FIFA). But the lack of collective intelligence within the IOC can sometimes be inexplicable.

The Telegraph reports:

The Libyan regime has successfully requested close to 1,000 tickets to events at the London Olympics and the country’s attendance at the Games is being co-ordinated by the Gaddafi family.

The Libyan Olympic Committee is headed by Muhammad Gaddafi and the Government now fears a major diplomatic embarrassment over the attendance of regime figures.

The decision to grant Libya the valuable tickets will infuriate the million Britons who have missed out on attending over-subscribed events.

Government sources warned of a diplomatic crisis last night after it emerged that Col Gaddafi himself may try to disrupt the event as a publicity coup if he remains in power in 2012.

The organisers of the London Games are obliged to sell Libya tickets, after the International Olympic Committee failed to expel the regime despite international condemnation of its bloody crack-down on opponents.

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Posted in Behaviour, Sport | 1 Comment »

Major Drop In Solar Activity Predicted: Landscheidt Minimum is upon us and a mini-ice age is imminent

June 15, 2011

The stunning announcement made at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society exceeded the expectations from the advance publicity!

The results of new studies were announced today (June 14) at the annual meeting of the solar physics division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. 

The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle (SC24) moves toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle (SC25) greatly reduced or even eliminated.

The indicators have been  growing for some time that we are in for a a new solar minimum – the Landscheidt minimum – which could be similar to the Dalton Minimum and may even approach the Maunder Minimum. This could mean a cooling period for the earth of 20 – 30 years or for as long as 60 – 70 years. In any event the signs will be unambiguous and inescapable within a decade.

It is reasonable to assume that climatic conditions over the next 20 – 30 years will resemble those prevailing between 1790 and 1820. But SC24 has a way to go yet and it could be that solar activity for SC24 and 25 will be even lower than during the Dalton minimum and perhaps closer to the Spörer minimum but perhaps not as deep as the Maunder minimum.

But in either case the solar activity to come following the Modern maximum may well resemble the 500 years of decline in solar activity which followed the Medieval maximum.

Solar activity events recorded in radiocarbon. Present period is on left. Values since 1950 not shown: Wikipedia

The three papers are: 

  1. “Large-Scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle 25?” by Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T.P. Larson, J. Schou & M. J. Thompson.
  2. “A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor” by W. C. Livingston, M. Penn & L. Svalgard.
  3. “Whither Goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona” by R. C. Altrock.

 Spacedaily reports:

Major Drop In Solar Activity Predicted

As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.

“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”

Hill is the lead author on one of three papers on these results being presented this week. Using data from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) of six observing stations around the world, the team translates surface pulsations caused by sound reverberating through the Sun into models of the internal structure.

One of their discoveries is an east-west zonal wind flow inside the Sun, called the torsional oscillation, which starts at mid-latitudes and migrates towards the equator. The latitude of this wind stream matches the new spot formation in each cycle, and successfully predicted the late onset of the current Cycle 24.

“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”

In the second paper, Matt Penn and William Livingston see a long-term weakening trend in the strength of sunspots, and predict that by Cycle 25 magnetic fields erupting on the Sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Spots are formed when intense magnetic flux tubes erupt from the interior and keep cooled gas from circulating back to the interior.

For typical sunspots this magnetism has a strength of 2,500 to 3,500 gauss (Earth’s magnetic field is less than 1 gauss at the surface); the field must reach at least 1,500 gauss to form a dark spot.

Using more than 13 years of sunspot data collected at the McMath-Pierce Telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona, Penn and Livingston observed that the average field strength declined about 50 gauss per year during Cycle 23 and now in Cycle 24.

They also observed that spot temperatures have risen exactly as expected for such changes in the magnetic field. If the trend continues, the field strength will drop below the 1,500 gauss threshold and spots will largely disappear as the magnetic field is no longer strong enough to overcome convective forces on the solar surface.

Moving outward, Richard Altrock, manager of the Air Force’s coronal research program at NSO’s Sunspot, NM, facilities has observed a slowing of the “rush to the poles,” the rapid poleward march of magnetic activity observed in the Sun’s faint corona. Altrock used four decades of observations with NSO’s 40-cm (16-inch) coronagraphic telescope at Sunspot.

“A key thing to understand is that those wonderful, delicate coronal features are actually powerful, robust magnetic structures rooted in the interior of the Sun,” Altrock explained. “Changes we see in the corona reflect changes deep inside the Sun.”

Altrock used a photometer to map iron heated to 2 million degrees C (3.6 million F). Stripped of half of its electrons, it is easily concentrated by magnetism rising from the Sun. In a well-known pattern, new solar activity emerges first at about 70 degrees latitude at the start of a cycle, then towards the equator as the cycle ages. At the same time, the new magnetic fields push remnants of the older cycle as far as 85 degrees poleward.

“In cycles 21 through 23, solar maximum occurred when this rush appeared at an average latitude of 76 degrees,” Altrock said.

“Cycle 24 started out late and slow and may not be strong enough to create a rush to the poles, indicating we’ll see a very weak solar maximum in 2013, if at all. If the rush to the poles fails to complete, this creates a tremendous dilemma for the theorists, as it would mean that Cycle 23’s magnetic field will not completely disappear from the polar regions (the rush to the poles accomplishes this feat). No one knows what the Sun will do in that case.”

All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while. “If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

That last may be the understatement of the century!!!

A photo of a sunspot taken in May 2010, with Earth shown to scale. The image has been colorized for aesthetic reasons. This image with 0.1 arcsecond resolution from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope represents the limit of what is currently possible in te

A photo of a sunspot taken in May 2010, with Earth shown to scale.This image with 0.1 arcsecond resolution from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope represents the limit of what is currently possible in terms of spatial resolution. CREDIT: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, V.M.J. Henriques (sunspot), NASA Apollo 17 (Earth)

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Posted in Climate, Science, Solar science | 6 Comments »

Sun goes quiet again but proton events and heightened risk of earthquake and volcanic activity continues

June 14, 2011

After picking up somewhat in April, the sun has quietened again in May.

Sunspots:

Sunspot numbers

 Radio Flux:

10.7 Radio flux

And,

Astronomers will unveil a “major result” on Tuesday (June 14) regarding the sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle.

The announcement will be made at a solar physics conference in New Mexico, according to an alert released today (June 10) by the American Astronomical Society. The discussion will begin at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT).

In the meantime, 

solar flares and proton events continue signifying a period of heightened volcanic and earthquake activity ——

Piers Corbyn predicts,

 M6+ Earthquakes Indonesia and New Zealand confirm WeatherAction 13-15th June quake risk trial warning.

Two major Earthquakes 13 June M6.0 New Zealand (precede by an M5.5) andM6.4 Molucca Sea Indonesia confirm WeatherAction’s warning issued 22 May for 13-15 June as a period of increased earthquake risk. SEE:

http://www.mauritiushot.com/christchurch-earthquake-13-june/ Two quakes hit Christchurch NZ. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php

“This 13-15th period”, said Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction.com, “is at the ‘q’ (lesser) level of our now two level forecasts of increased Earthquake risk (trial) around the world compared with other times before and after.  In the upper, ‘Q’, level we expect the biggest increases in seismic activity which also includes notable volcanic eruptions. The last Q period May 31- Jun5th was dramatically marked by the new eruption of the Chile earthquake chain on June 4th as well as associated very extreme weather events”. See http://bit.ly/lFXtsu

The next increased Quake risk period 16-19 June – at the larger, Q, level – follows straight after this one.

 

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Posted in Geosciences, Solar science, Volcanos | 1 Comment »

Climate change teaching to get back to science but High Priest Bob Ward wants the brainwashing to continue

June 13, 2011

The phenomenon of climate change will someday get back to science and leave the alarmist dogma behind. But we can expect that any moves in this direction will be resisted bitterly by the high priests of global warming and the carbon trading cabal.

The Guardian reports:

Climate change should be excluded from curriculum

Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said. 

Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schoolsto decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives. 

In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum “to get back to the science in science”. “We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don’t date,” he said. “We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff. The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist.”

But this is The Guardian and it must have been painful to report such a radical step!! Needless to say they provide ample space for global warming High Priest Bob Ward to voice his objections:

But Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, warned that Oates’ ideas might not be in pupils’ best interests and could make science less interesting for children.

“An emphasis on climate change in the curriculum connects the core scientific concepts to topical issues,” he said. “Certain politicians feel that they don’t like the concept of climate change. I hope this isn’t a sign of a political agenda being exercised.”

He said leaving climate change out of the national curriculum might encourage a teacher who was a climate change sceptic to abandon teaching the subject to their pupils. “This would not be in the best interests of pupils. It would be like a creationist teacher not teaching about evolution. Climate change is about science. If you remove the context of scientific concepts, you make it less interesting to children.”

But perhaps Bob Ward needs to be reminded that climate change has been happening for ever and will continue without caring very much about what our science purports to understand – or fails to understand. There is little science left in present day “climate science” – which has degenerated to be a dogma with the “consensus scientists” being little more than an advocacy group – and any return to science regarding the climate is welcome and long overdue.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Education, Politics, Science, UK | Comments Off on Climate change teaching to get back to science but High Priest Bob Ward wants the brainwashing to continue

Two years of self-imposed exile for zu Guttenberg

June 13, 2011

Governments no longer send people into exile but those out of favour often choose self-imposed exile to remove themselves from the public consciousness and wait for better days.

zu Guttenberg needs to purge himself after his plagiarism escapades were found out and seems to have chosen to go this route. A self-imposed exile in London or Washington for about 2 years. But for the “cut and paste” generation his sins are not so heinous – even in academic circles. I consider it unfortunate but it is a reality that the originality that was once considered necessary for any PhD work – in any country and especially in the non-quantitative disciplines – continues to be diluted. Even in the quantitative sciences, the pressure on producing publications has led to many labs with PhD students becoming paper factories. The students go along because the number of their publications is their entry into the academic world.

My guess is that he will be back in German politics in about 5 years. Der Spiegel reports:

After months of hiding from the spotlight, Germany’s fallen former defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is ready for his next big move — abroad. The conservative is preparing to leave the country and rethink his career following the plagiarism allegations that stalled his promising political trajectory. 

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has reason to be cautious. State prosecutors are still investigating more than 100 claims connected to allegations that he plagiarized large chunks of his doctoral dissertation. Once Germany’s most popular and promising politician, the scandal forced the member of the Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union to step down from his post as defense minister on March 1. His alma mater, the University of Bayreuth, later stripped him of his doctoral title, after a damning review of his work found that he had deliberately used text from various sources, including the academic service of the Bundestag where he was an MP at the time, without attributing it. 

Guttenberg has called the plan to leave Germany for at least two years a “sabbatical” in conversations with and emails to friends. He has also reportedly refused to rule out a return to politics at a later date.

Guttenberg and his family are reportedly planning a fresh start abroad after his plagiarism scandal.

Exile or a sabbatical for zu Googleberg: image Der Spiegel

…..

Moving to America in times of difficulty has become an informal tradition for German politicians. Current co-chair of the environmentalist Greens, Cem Özdemir, took a job at a Washington think tank after his personal use of frequent flyer miles earned on the job scandalized German newspapers. He later made a successful comeback.  

Guttenberg, who resigned after just 16 months as defence minister, could be attempting a similar approach. Before the plagiarism scandal many expected the suave aristocrat to make it all the way to the chancellery.

But Guttenberg doesn’t plan to leave too quietly. Before his departure he’s likely to give a lengthy interview about the plagiarism affair, sources told SPIEGEL.

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Posted in Fraud, Germany, Politics | 2 Comments »

The ultimate element anagram

June 11, 2011

The periodic table of elements – first put together by Mendeleev in 1869 –  sometimes seems to have almost mystical properties

Mendeleev's 1869 periodic table; note that his arrangement presents the periods vertically, and the groups horizontally: wikipedia

From Slate

But for my money, the all-time greatest wordplay related to the periodic table is this “doubly true” anagram, which won Mike Keith the special category prize in May 1999 at Anagrammy.com. The initial anagram equates thirty elements on the periodic table with 30 other elements:

hydrogen + zirconium + tin + oxygen + rhenium + platinum + tellurium + terbium + nobelium + chromium + iron + cobalt + carbon + aluminum + ruthenium + silicon + ytterbium + hafnium + sodium + selenium + cerium + manganese + osmium + uranium + nickel + praseodymium + erbium + vanadium + thallium + plutonium

=

nitrogen + zinc + rhodium + helium + argon + neptunium + beryllium + bromine + lutetium + boron + calcium + thorium + niobium + lanthanum + mercury + fluorine + bismuth + actinium + silver + cesium + neodymium + magnesium + xenon + samarium + scandium + europium + berkelium + palladium + antimony + thulium

That’s more than half the periodic table—pretty amazing, especially since he used the elements with Xs and Zs. The kicker is that if you replace each element with its number on the periodic table, the anagram still balances:

1 + 40 + 50 + 8 + 75 + 78 + 52 + 65 + 102 + 24 + 26 + 27 + 6 + 13 + 44 + 14 + 70 + 72 + 11 + 34 + 58 + 25 + 76 + 92 + 28 + 59 + 68 + 23 + 81 + 94

=

7 + 30 + 45 + 2 + 18 + 93 + 4 + 35 + 71 + 5 + 20 + 90 + 41 + 57 + 80 + 9 + 83 + 89 + 47 + 55 + 60 + 12 + 54 + 62 + 21 + 63 + 97 + 46 + 51 + 69

= 1416

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Dirty Football: Another corruption trail from Singapore to Finland

June 11, 2011

Dirty football

The corruption that is endemic at the highest levels with the FIFA administrators  is also evident at lower levels and with players involved in match fixing and the betting industry. The BBC reports:

Finnish football has been rocked by a match-fixing scandal which has implications across the world. Nine former members of one team and a Singapore national accused of organising the scams have been put on trial.

Meanwhile, a criminal investigation has begun into another club suspected of money-laundering. Betting syndicates have been said to make as much as $1.5m (£0.9m) from fixed games. The Finnish League, which began its new season in May, usually commands a low profile in the global game.

But events over the past few months have brought it to the attention of football’s world governing body, and its fight against corruption. Tampere, Finland’s former champions, have been suspended. The club received $435,000 from a Singapore company, but officials could not explain why they had been given such a large sum. Money-laundering is suspected.

Finnish police have said the case is linked to the trial of seven Zambians and two Georgians who used to play for a different club in the north of the country. They are accused of accepting bribes worth more than $750,000 to affect the outcome of matches.

In the same trial Wilson Raj Perumal, a Singaporean, is charged with arranging the payments. Fifa also want to speak to Mr Perumal about international friendly matches involving Asian and African teams that are suspected of being fixed.

Last month, two Zambian brothers who played for another Finnish side were convicted of taking bribes from Mr Perumal. The officer leading the investigation in Finland said there was serious speculation this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Meanwhile further details about the FIFA shenanigans continues. From The Guardian:

Another Caribbean football association has come forward to allege receiving $40,000 (£24,440) in cash at the meeting arranged by Fifa‘s presidential challenger Mohamed bin Hammam and one of its vice-presidents Jack Warner at the heart of the bribery scandal that has rocked the world football governing body.

Blatter: FIFA Corruption supervisor

The president of the Surinam FA has now claimed it received the cash in $100 bills in a brown paper envelope on arrival in Trinidad for the meeting with Bin Hammam on 10 May. …. 

The new evidence from Surinam appears to back up the version of events outlined by other CFU members in the evidence file compiled by the US lawyer John Collins at the behest of the Fifa executive committee member and Concacaf general secretary Chuck Blazer.

The civil war within Concacaf further intensified as Fifa imposed a worldwide ban on Lisle Austin, who claimed to be acting president of the federation in the wake of the suspension of Warner and attempted to fire Blazer.

The whistleblowers were led by the Bahamas FA president Anton Sealey and vice-president Fred Lunn, whose claims were backed by statements from the Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands FAs. According to Lunn’s affidavit, he was given $40,000 in cash and after photographing the notes he returned the money and set in train the bribery investigation.

A split has formed in the CFU between those who have backed the claims in the evidence file, which also includes text messages and email traffic, and those who insist no inducements were offered.

 

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Posted in Corruption, Football, Sport | Comments Off on Dirty Football: Another corruption trail from Singapore to Finland

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